Megapodes

Megapode, bird of New Guinea

In the archipelago of Papua New Guinea, in the caldera of the extinct volcano Mount Bosavi, the Megapodius (Megapodius affinis) burrow into the hot ashes to bury their eggs oval. The megapode New Guinea, is a bird incubator, squat like a big chicken with small heads and large feet, the family Megapodiidae. Besides their name literally means large foot (from the Greek, mega and Poda). Megapode occupy natural habitats of subtropical forests and wetlands are mostly brown or black. His head is paler than its body, and it has a gray crest, a yellow beak and long legs, dull yellow. At birth the megapodes are super early. At hatching their eggs and chicks are independent, the parents never see their young, it is unique among birds. The megapode is omnivorous, it can eat a wide variety of foods from the forest floor. They hatch with open eyes, full body with feathers, with a perfect body coordination and strength enough to run and pursue game, the same day they are born. Megapodes do not incubate their eggs with their body heat like other birds, but bury them.

These are the only birds known to incubate their eggs using volcanic heat. Their eggs are the only ones to have such a large volume of yellow, constituting 50-70% of the weight of the egg. Megapodes build nests with massive carpet of decaying vegetation, the male adds or removes litter to regulate the internal heat of the nest. But in the caldera of Mount Bosavi, they use geothermal heat. They simply adapted their strategy of incubation depending on the local environment. Megapodes are in the Australasian region at large, including the islands of the Western Pacific, New Guinea and the islands of Indonesia east of the Wallace Line, but also the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal. With the arrival of humans in a number of Pacific island groups such as Fiji, Tonga and New Caledonia have lost most or all of their species megapode.

Image: Megapode occupy natural habitats of subtropical forests and wetlands are mostly brown or black. His head is paler than its body, and it has a gray crest, a yellow beak and long legs, dull yellow.